Skipper avoids prosecution over horrific death at sea

A skipper has avoided prosecution over a deckhand's death on board a commercial fishing boat off the Great Australian Bight.

The South Australian Supreme Court has dismissed an appeal by SafeWork SA.

Jack Salvemini, 36, was crushed to death after he got tangled in a fishing net.

It was being winched onto the deck of the shark fishing boat in the Bight in 2005.

The company, Jean Bryant Fisheries, was found guilty of breaching workplace safety laws and fined $70,000 in the Industrial Court.

Skipper Arthur Markellos was fined $17,000 but his conviction was overturned on appeal.

The Supreme Court has now dismissed SafeWork SA's appeal, ruling Markellos was an employee rather than a self-contractor, so not liable to face prosecution over the workplace death.

The victim's father, Lee Salvemini, said he was extremely disappointed that nearly seven years after his son's horrific death, the skipper could get off on a technicality and he wanted a meeting with the Attorney-General.

"It's crap, it's just crap, I just can't believe that the courts come up with those sorts of things," he said.

"I think the Crown Solicitors have done all they can. I'm grateful for what they did but it's the court system, it's just wrong.

"The Attorney-General John Rau is going to have to step in here and do something about it. He's going have to do something, it can't end here.

"I'll never give up, as long as I'm alive I won't give up. My son lost his life in this accident and he's not here to defend himself and I'm the only person that's here defending him. No-one else seems to want to know about it."

Whilst this is about legal aspects of the laws as they stand, what it's really about is a son who never came home from work

Juanita Lovatt, SafeWork SA

Mr Salvemini said the death has had an enormous impact on his family.

"I feel very let down, I mean it has destroyed our family. This has been going on six years... we're 29 days short of seven years and it's still not finished here," he said.

Mr Salvemini said he was happy with proposed national legislative amendments to close the loophole in the workplace safety laws, but he said there remained more room for improvement, so other families could avoid going through what his has.

Juanita Lovatt, a director of strategic interventions at SafeWork SA, said her team would review the judgment and the Crown Solicitor's Office would consider if there were any further avenues of appeal.

She became emotional during media interviews as she spoke of ongoing tragedy for the victim's family.

"Whilst this is about legal aspects of the laws as they stand, what it's really about is a son who never came home from work," she said.

"In this day and age nobody should get killed at their work.

"Jack's death and so many other deaths at work are preventable."

She said the current laws were written in the mid-1980s but had become in desperate need of review.

SA Premier Jay Weatherill said he sympathised with the victim's family.

"I share their anger, I believe that a legal technicality of this sort should not permit somebody to escape responsibility for what otherwise would be regarded as a breach of the occupational health and safety legislation," he said.

Both the Government and the Opposition have blamed each other for delays in the passage of the workplace safety legislation.